TV, Film And Radio

FILM

GOLDENGIRL

Avco-Embassy, USA, 1979

A brilliant US sprinter prepares for a unique triple victory at the Moscow Olympics. The exploitation merchants close in and the mental and physical pressures lead to doubts whether she will ever reach her goal.

Susan Anton had a Golden Globe nomination as New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture

TELEVISION

WAXWORK

Granada Television, 1979

90 minute play set in Victorian London about a woman condemned to hang for the murder of her husband. Sergeant Cribb investigates in the limited time before the execution.

Starring Alan Dobie, Carol Royle and David Waller

Screenplay Pauline Macauley, from the Peter Lovesey novel

Director June Wyndham-Davies

CRIBB (First Series)

Granada Television, 1980

Seven one hour plays: this and the second series are frequently repeated on ITV3. In its first year, Cribb grossed the highest takings of any Granada production, outselling Coronation Street, Laurence Olivier Presents and World in Action. Audiences peaked at 12.5 million in the second series. It was sold across the world to more than 40 countries ranging from America’s PBS to Zimbabwe Television.

Alan Dobie was nominated as Best Actor in the 1981 Emmy Awards and William Simons was nominated as Best Supporting Actor.

In America, Cribb was chosen to launch the long-running Mystery! series on the Public Broadcasting Service

SWING, SWING TOGETHER

Three female students out for a midnight swim witness a body dumped into the river. Cribb and Constable Thackeray investigate and find themselves following the route of Three Men in a Boat.

Starring Alan Dobie, William Simons, Heather Moray and Ronald Lacey

Screenplay Brian Thompson, from the Peter Lovesey novel

Director June Wyndham-Davies

ABRACADAVER

A series of music hall accidents prompts an investigation by Cribb that uncovers the not so innocent pleasures indulged in by the cream of society.

THE DETECTIVE WORE SILK DRAWERS

Bare-knuckle fighting is illegal, but the hands on a headless body recovered from the Thames suggest it is going on. A Scotland Yard man goes undercover to investigate.

Starring Alan Dobie, William Simons, David Waller and Norma West

Screenplay Peter Lovesey, from his own novel

Director Alan Grint

THE HORIZONTAL WITNESS

The body of the king of London’s underworld is found in one of his brothels. Cribb discovers a link with a London hospital and as Thackeray has problems ‘of a personal nature’ gets him admitted to Charing Cross Hospital to observe a key criminal.

Starring Alan Dobie, William Simons, David Waller and James Coyle

Screenplay Peter & Jacqueline Lovesey

Director Alan Grint

WOBBLE TO DEATH

A competitor drops dead in a six-day indoor endurance race at the Royal Agricultural Hall and while the show continues the versatile detectives have to decide if it was due to exhaustion, tetanus or strychnine.

Starring Alan Dobie, William Simons, Bobbie Brown and Michael Elphick

Screenplay Alan Plater, from the Peter Lovesey novel

Director Gordon Flemyng

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Thackeray is best man at a wedding, but Cribb is suspicious because the bride is 37 years younger than her intended and is wearing a secondhand wedding dress. Her previous elderly husbands seem to have died rather suddenly.

A CASE OF SPIRITS

An investigation of the theft of a valuable painting and a vase leads to a murder enquiry as Cribb and Thackeray are forced to indulge in the Victorian craze for spiritualism and se’ances.

Starring Alan Dobie, William Simons, Judy Cornwell and Clive Swift

Screenplay Arden Winch, from the Peter Lovesey novel

Director Bill Gilmour

CRIBB (Second Series)

Granada Television, 1981

MAD HATTER’S HOLIDAY

In Brighton, Cribb and Thackeray have a breath of sea air and solve a gruesome murder. They meet the voyeuristic Mr Moscrop, with a passion for telescopes, and venture into the crocodile tank in the aquarium.

Starring Alan Dobie, William Simons and Fenella Fielding

Screenplay Bill McIlwraith, from the Peter Lovesey novel

Director June Wyndham-Davies

THE LAST TRUMPET

Jumbo, the largest and most famous elephant in London’s Regent’s Park Zoo, is to be sold to the American, P.T.Barnum. A protest group is formed and it seems they will stop at nothing to keep Jumbo in London.

Starring Alan Dobie, William Simons, David Waller and Joyce Carey

Screenplay Peter & Jacqueline Lovesey

Director Brian Mills

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE

Cribb gets the royal seal of approval as he investigates a near fatality involving Queen Victoria and a pram containing her grandson. The nursemaid is dismissed, but is this the work of anarchists?

THE CHOIR THAT WOULDN’T SING

A Christmas episode finds Cribb and Thackeray in a Gloucestershire village investigating the death of a colonel member of the choir. Nobody seems to want to assist the police.

Starring Alan Dobie, William Simons and Elizabeth Spriggs

Screenplay Peter & Jacqueline Lovesey

Director Mary McMurray

MURDER OLD BOY

The former school captain of a public school organises a selective reunion of distinguished former pupils. Suddenly the old school tie finds another use and the Yard’s help is urgently required.

Starring

Alan Dobie, William Simons, David Waller and John Carson

Screenplay Peter & Jacqueline Lovesey

Director George Spenton-Foster

INVITATION TO A DYNAMITE PARTY

London is beset by Irish ‘dynamiters’ in 1884 and an attack on one of the royal family is planned. Cribb must infiltrate the terrorist gang and discover the sinister secret submarine.

Starring Alan Dobie, William Simons, David Waller and Jeananne Crowley

Screenplay Arden Winch, from the Peter Lovesey novel

Director Alan Grint

Cribb series one and two were published in DVD and video by Acorn Media UK, 2004. www.acornmediauk.com

Questioned by a TV audience of children for the BBC programme In the Limelight with Lesley on 6 June, 1980, The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, revealed that she didn’t see much television, but enjoyed a programme that went out on Sunday evenings about a Victorian policeman called Cribb.

TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED

Anglia Television, 1982

30 minute play

A MAN WITH A FORTUNE

An American called Smith travels to London with the ambition of researching his family tree and finds some unsuspected relatives.

ENGLISH FILE: TELLING STORIES

Peter introduces and interrupts a dramatisation of his short story to demonstrate techniques of writing

Starring Michael Keating, Jason Rush and Denys Graham

Screenplay Peter Lovesey

Producer David Taft

DEAD GORGEOUS

Carlton Television, 2002

World War II has just ended and two ex-WAAFs meet again by chance and agree that the peace holds little excitement and their husbands are a dead loss. They think up an ingenious way of making the dead loss a reality.

Starring Helen McCrory, Fay Ripley, Ron Cook and Loyd Owen

Screenplay Andrew Payne, from the novel On the Edge, by Peter Lovesey

Director Sarah Harding

ROSEMARY & THYME

Carnival Television, 2003-2007

Peter was story consultant for this light-hearted series about two gardeners turned sleuths.